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https://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/new-blood-48-5704/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2013 20:50:03 +0000FIGHT! Staffhttp://mag.fightmagazine.com/?p=5704Mixed martial arts is the fastest growing sport in the world. It garners more attention and new fans daily. The emergence of so many new athletes sometimes makes it hard for fans to notice some of the fighters on the verge of making it to the next level. MMAWeekly.com takes you deep inside the sport [...]

]]>Mixed martial arts is the fastest growing sport in the world. It garners more attention and new fans daily. The emergence of so many new athletes sometimes makes it hard for fans to notice some of the fighters on the verge of making it to the next level. MMAWeekly.com takes you deep inside the sport and presents you with some of the upcoming New Blood.

Looking back on his third-round TKO win at Legacy FC 16, undefeated featherweight prospect Chas Skelly sees both the positives and negatives of his performance.

“There are a lot of things that I could’ve done better that I didn’t do because I was trying to set him up for a certain submission the first couple rounds, but it wasn’t working,” says Skelly. “It should have been a 30-second fight, instead of three rounds. The good thing is, I learned a lot from that fight, and it was a very valuable experience for me, so I can’t say too many bad things about it.”

That veteran-like outlook comes on the heels of a successful comeback following a two-year layoff. Skelly’s three wins in three fights in 2012 couldn’t have been more successful.

“In 2010, I suffered an injury that put me out for a year, then in 2011, I tried to come back from the injury and got hurt again,” he says. “Finally getting back in there and getting great coaching and training partners at Team Takedown, things are going great for me. It’s nice to get back in there and get a few wins under my belt. Last year went better than I could have ever expected.”

Having fought in Bellator before his injury, Skelly is looking forward to getting back to that level and finishing what he started prior to his layoff.

“Now that I’m back and rolling and feeling good, I know I can push myself just like I used to before I got hurt—that’s a huge step for me,” says Skelly. “Hopefully, I’ll get a call up to the big time.”

Legacy FC bantamweight prospect Matt “Crowbar” Hobar may have suffered the first defeat of his career in 2012, but it was the rather odd finish to the fight that left a sour taste in his mouth.
“Four minutes into the first round, he [Steven Peterson] pressured into me, and I threw a looping overhand left punch that landed on top of his shoulder,” says Hobar. “My elbow actually popped out of
its socket.”

Luckily, Hobar’s dislocation was a clean one. Two months later he was ready to fight again, and Legacy FC signed the rematch. Hobar managed to control much of the second fight on his feet and earned a majority decision. For the normally ground-based fighter, winning the bout without having to take it to the mat was a big step forward in the evolution of his fight game.

“This is the first fight I stood all three rounds and banged with the guy,” says Hobar. “I’m a wrestler, so I’m always taking it to the mat and trying to get a submission or ground-and-pound. I actually controlled the whole fight from my feet, so I’m very happy with that.”

The win gets Hobar back on track, and with a 6-1 record, possibly into title contention.

“I’d like to fight for the Legacy FC Bantamweight Championship—that’d be great,” says Hobar. “I also know that you have to make those fights happen, so I’m going to take things one fight at a time and look for good match-ups that are entertaining and bring in the fans.”

While bantamweight prospect Ryan “Baby Face” Benoit was expecting a win in his bout against Joseph Sandoval at Legacy FC 16, the way it came about was completely unexpected.

“I ended up catching him with a straight right hand,” says Benoit. “I wasn’t expecting him to go down. Usually, when you’re trying to really grind your punches, you can feel them land and expect a reaction, but that one, I just kind of threw it out there and he happened to go down. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
The win capped off a banner year for Benoit, who went undefeated in his three fights and raised his record to 6-1. Perhaps more noteworthy for Benoit was the fact that 2012 was the first time in years that he was completely healthy when he stepped into the cage.

“I’ve had to take some big layoffs in between fights early in my career, going almost an entire year without a fight because of hand injuries,” he says. “I ended up breaking my hand one time this year, but it wasn’t too bad, and I think I was only out for six weeks of training. I’ve already had four hand surgeries during my career and to not have to go through that this year was a huge relief.”

Benoit feels his hand issues came simply because he started as a wrestler and hadn’t yet developed the proper striking technique. Along with becoming more refined in his stand-up game, Benoit says that he’d like to be more comprehensive in his training environment.

“One thing I’d like to have more of is a team structure,” he says.
Benoit feels he’s made the right moves forward to warrant bigger opportunities in the near future. He also hopes that a move down in weight will allow him to better capitalize on those opportunities when they should arise. With the UFC opening up career sustainability for 125-pounders, if Benoit keeps going the way he did in 2012 (two knockouts and a submission finish), the 23-year-old prospect could be entertaining bigger opportunities in the near future.

“I think I’ve done well and have started to pay my dues a little bit,” he says. “My last four fights have been on AXS TV, and I’ve finished all of them. My last three fights, I’ve finished in the first round. I feel comfortable in front of the cameras, so I’m ready for whatever comes. I’d like to start making my drop to 125 pounds. I’ve seen these guys at 135 pounds, and they’re huge. Even though I look muscular, they’re a little bit bigger than me. I think if I can make the weight, I can be a force at 125 pounds.”

]]>https://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/new-blood-48-5704/feed/0Untappable – 11 Fighters Who Just Won’t Quithttps://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/untappable-11-fighters-who-just-wont-quit-5710/
https://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/untappable-11-fighters-who-just-wont-quit-5710/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2013 20:40:54 +0000RJ Cliffordhttp://mag.fightmagazine.com/?p=5710Ever since Royce Gracie started tapping out one-gloved boxers at UFC 1, the submission has become one of the unique intricacies of MMA. It’s a breath-holding moment when a submission is nearly finished and you know the defenseless fighter is either seconds away from tapping or going unconscious. The 11 current fighters on this list [...]

]]>Ever since Royce Gracie started tapping out one-gloved boxers at UFC 1, the submission has become one of the unique intricacies of MMA. It’s a breath-holding moment when a submission is nearly finished and you know the defenseless fighter is either seconds away from tapping or going unconscious. The 11 current fighters on this list laugh at that thought—entering the cage at least 20 times to prove they can’t be tapped.

11. Martin Kampmann
0 submission losses in 26 fights.

He’s not the first fighter you think of when pondering un-tappables, but the numbers don’t lie. The Danish welterweight has survived the submission games of Jake Shields, Paulo Thiago, Carlos Condit, Nate Marquardt, and Thales Leites. Kampmann is usually willing to engage a ground fighter on his own turf, showing either a complete lack of game-planning or his own personal way of flipping the bird to lauded submission games he was supposed to fall victim to.

10. Urijah Faber
0 submission losses in 32 fights.

The golden boy of the lighter weight classes someway, somehow managed to never tap in 32 fights, despite usually fighting a weight class or two above his current bantamweight home. Faber is a fine Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner to be sure, but his scrappiness on the ground has been his best weapon, scrambling out of bad positions and gutting out close submission attempts by his opponents. Renan Baroa, Takeya Mizugaki, Raphael Assuncao, Mike Brown, and Bibiano Fernandes couldn’t make “The California Kid” submit.

9. Gilbert Melendez
0 submission losses in 23 fights.

A Cesar Gracie product, “El Nino” chooses to completely ignore anything having to do with submissions, having never been submitted nor submitting an opponent in 21 wins (well, Harris Sarmiento tapped to strikes). A relentless scrambler fueled by a deep gas tank keeps this California native in a safe place whenever the action hits the floor. Submission veterans Tatsuya Kawajiri, Shinya Aoki, Rodrigo Damm, Clay Guida, and Rumina Sato couldn’t handle his game. When you’re training with the Diaz brothers and Jake Shields, you either learn to escape or you get prosthetic limbs.

8. Demian Maia
0 submission losses in 21 fights

Regarded by some as the best Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner in MMA—regardless of weight class—the middleweight turned welterweight had every fighter at 185 pounds rejoicing that Maia wasn’t around to crank their limbs anymore. His sound technique keeps him out of trouble at all times, never breaking a sweat when his back is on the canvas. His dedication to Muay Thai kept him off the mat in his last few fights, but he went back to his roots in his most recent fight by making Rick Story’s head explode like a Gusher fruit snack with a choke/neck crank combo.

7. Frank Mir
0 submission losses in 22 fights

The submission game of the big boy division is often overlooked due to some sloppy fighting from gassed out heavies. Mir, on the other hand, has escaped the clutches of Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (twice), Roy Nelson, and Tank Abbott (ok, that last one is a joke). The Las Vegas local combines strength and technique, coagulating a brutal submission offense that almost no fighter wants a part of. Even trying submission attempts on him can be hazardous to your health—just ask the pins in Big Nog’s arm.

6. Sean Sherk
0 submission losses in 41 fights

Sean “The Muscle Shark” Sherk hasn’t let one of the worst nicknames in MMA keep him from spitting in the face of submission adversity. With the un-chokable neck of a rhino, coupled with the arms and legs of an alligator, Sherk is physically incapable of being submitted. The former UFC Lightweight Champion battled BJ Penn, Hermes Franca, Kenny Florian, Nick Diaz, Georges St-Pierre, and Matt Hughes without even the faintest thought of tapping.

5. Shinya Aoki
0 submission losses in 39 fights

Not only has Shinya Aoki gone nine years and 38 fights without tapping out, he did it almost exclusively in the submission heavy MMA landscape of Japan. The Far East had an appreciation for the submission game back when American fans were screaming for blood and booing ground games (we all know that doesn’t happen anymore). One of the best offensive ground games in the business keep opponents on edge and unable to work a submission game of their own. The Grand Master of Flying Submissions lives by the mantra “The best defense is a good offense.”

4. Nick Diaz
0 submission losses in 35 fights.

One of two Cesar Gracie-trained black belts on this list, the elder Diaz brother is known primarily for his offense, not his defense. However, he’s been able to get by with less than mediocre takedown defense since few fighters dare take him to ground. Submission savants BJ Penn, Hayoto Sakurai, Chris Lytle, and Frank Shamrock couldn’t even get close to a submission attempt, let alone a finish.

3. Jake Shields
0 submissions in 35 fights.

Unlike a lot of other fighters on this list, Shields spends every possible second he can fighting on the ground—opponents’ submission skills be damned. His self-proclaimed “American Jiu-Jitsu” merges his collegiate wrestling skill with a Cesar Gracie black belt. “Grinding” and “suffocating” do not accurately describe his style that keeps even the best submission fighter looking clueless. Georges St-Pierre, Mike Pyle, Renato Verissimo, and Carlos Condit couldn’t tap him. He even gutted out of a rear naked choke by Jason Miller just to prove his cajones.

2. Diego Sanchez
0 submission losses in 28 fights.

If you are not sitting down before reading the list of badasses who haven’t been able to tap “The Dream” in the cage, pull up a chair so you don’t fall over. Paulo Thiago, BJ Penn, Clay Guida, Joe Stevenson, Jon Fitch, Nick Diaz, and Kenny Florian all gave it the old college try, but Sanchez made it out alive every time. When not trying to absorb power from thunderstorms (remember that?), the Greg Jackson-trained lightweight’s constant motion and cardio make him impossible to corral. Getting him into a bad position is nearly impossible. Keeping him in a bad position is an exercise in futility.

1. BJ Penn
0 submission losses in 27 fights.

Not only has the pineapple-eating Hawaiian never been submitted in MMA, he did it in multiple weight classes: Diego Sanchez, Kenny Florian, Sean Sherk, and Jens Pulver at lightweight; Nick Diaz, Jon Fitch, Georges St-Pierre, and Matt Hughes at welterweight; Renzo Gracie and Rodrigo Gracie at weird, random weights; and just for fun, Lyoto Machida at heavyweight. You have to wonder how Penn is still walking. The first American to win the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championships never let a thing like a poor gas tank or scale keep him from losing a limb.

Sub-Free Fighters
These fighters have entered the cage at least 20 times without getting submitted.

]]>https://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/untappable-11-fighters-who-just-wont-quit-5710/feed/0The Professor is The Madmanhttps://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/the-professor-is-the-madman-5714/
https://www.fightmagazine.com/mma-magazine/the-professor-is-the-madman-5714/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2013 20:30:47 +0000TR Foleyhttp://mag.fightmagazine.com/?p=5714To teach a champion, you have to understand his influences. For Georges St-Pierre, no mortal is more instructive than the brilliant mind of John Danaher. Inside a windowless, underground office at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York City, John Danaher is sitting behind a computer, pondering an article he’s just read on the Internet. [...]

]]>To teach a champion, you have to understand his influences. For Georges St-Pierre, no mortal is more instructive than the brilliant mind of John Danaher.

Inside a windowless, underground office at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York City, John Danaher is sitting behind a computer, pondering an article he’s just read on the Internet.

Outside the door of the office on Dodger-blue mats, an afternoon jiu-jitsu class waits patiently for him to emerge—10 minutes pass, then 20. Danaher is only feet away, but none of the students poke their heads inside his office or dare to interrupt with sounds from their own conversations. As America’s busiest city bustles overhead, 50 of the Big Apple’s most successful professionals sit cross-legged and silent, waiting for their teacher to pay them attention.

When Danaher finally emerges, he beckons over a 160-pound black belt, and in a soft, clear Kiwi accent says, “Today we will learn the Tomoe Nage. The first step to the Tomoe Nage is to make sure you have a solid grip on your opponent’s lapel. The second is to grab his sleeve at the elbow with your other hand…”

Danaher’s words give way to action. The third-degree Renzo Gracie black belt sits gently to his left hip as he puts his foot into his opponent’s waist, then he rotates in a circle before using his leverage and grip to flip him ass-over-head. He recomposes to his feet, stiffens his back, and repeats the same instruction. The serious-faced Danaher never changes expression or opens his mouth to breath.

After a third demonstration, the class retreats to mimic at they’ve seen. Professor Danaher sits against the wall and scans his classroom.

The class is here to absorb what UFC fighter and Danaher-trained grappler John Cholish has jokingly referred to as the “Danaher Experience,” a reprieve from the false machismo and over-confidence of typical jiu-jitsu and MMA coaches. In this room, the attention is placed on the student and optimizing his physical attributes through a carefully crafted learning experience. No excess explanation, just the facts.

*****

When you grow up on an island, most of what you learn comes from the written word. For Danaher, who was raised in the “idyllic and fulfilling” town of Whangaparaoa, New Zealand, it was books about America that offered him both an escape and education. “I avidly read about American history,” says Danaher. “I think because I knew I’d live here one day.” Much of his life on New Zealand’s north island was Spartan-like. “I didn’t watch television until 1976. And even then it was to cheer wildly for the Americans during the Montreal Olympics.”

A bright student, Danaher breezed his way through high school and college, earning a Master’s in Philosophy from Auckland University before being awarded a scholarship to Columbia University to earn his Ph.D. He arrived in New York City in 1991.

Danaher, then 240 pounds and power-lifting as his “main source of physical recreation,” found work as a bouncer at the Upper West Side’s Crane Club, an establishment that had started out hosting Jewish singles parties but had since attracted professional sports teams and more malevolent late night intrigues. According to Dr. Peter Maguire, a historian and author who befriended Danaher at Columbia, “He was level-headed in confrontation, a total gentleman. That is until the second he wasn’t.”

Columbia University by day and the Crane Club by night, Danaher’s life in the early ‘90s was a compartmentalization of his passions. In Morningside Heights, he could teach “Intro to Moral Philosophy” to undergrads and write his dissertation (paraphrased as “Logic of Theory Change in the Physical Sciences: What Makes Scientists Want to Revise Theories in the Face of Contradictory Evidence”), and in the evening he could confront violent humans. It was on the barstool that Danaher got his first up-close study of the physical and psychological solutions used to control another human’s aggression.

“Violence is universal, but in America, there were subtle differences,” says Danaher. “In New Zealand, there were more fist fights. In America, there was more talking before fights, and less actual fighting. But when violence did break out, it got more serious quickly, especially at hip-hop clubs, which tended to have more of a knife and gun culture.”

Danaher didn’t just learn about gunplay, he also witnessed the advantage American wrestlers were enjoying in street fights. “In New Zealand, wrapping up another man was seen as unsportsmanlike, but I could see they had a leg up.” In late 1994, a friend showed Danaher a grainy video cassette of UFC 2, and the control-hungry Kiwi formed an instant attraction to Brazilian ground fighters like Royce Gracie. Puzzle solving as a means to control another human—the conceit was too powerful for Danaher to ignore.

Danaher began training with Craig Kukuk, the owner of a small gym in NYC who was often being visited by Renzo Gracie, Matt Serra, Ricardo Almeida, and “other luminaries of the sport.”

“John looked like a sasquatch back then,” says Serra. “He was 250 pounds, hair down to his shoulders, and he’d roll in a mesh Giants jersey.” Serra, whose favorite anecdote about Danaher is that he wore a rash-guard and a jean jacket to the former UFC champ’s wedding, describes Danaher sartorial individualism as “I don’t give a fuck.”

By 1996, Renzo had settled in New York and promoted Danaher to purple belt. Entering his final year at Columbia, Danaher was splitting time between rolling jiu-jitsu and preparing the defense of his dissertation. Renzo had just lost Serra and Almeida to relocation and needed someone to instruct his day classes. He offered Danaher the position, forcing Danaher to decide between quitting his Ph.D program and losing the opportunity to pursue jiu-jitsu as a full-time job.

“I wanted to remove him from the academic world,” says Renzo. “I thought he was going to kill himself. Very depressive, very sad constantly, you know? I saw that, and I said, ‘You shouldn’t write about things that put you down for weeks.’ He was writing about religion—I said, ‘My man, our religion is jiu-jitsu! It’s our lifestyle!’”

Danaher took an afternoon to “ruminate” on the offer. He chose jiu-jitsu. “People thought I was crazy, but the thing is, I always did philosophy because I loved it, and I didn’t feel the need to get a piece of paper that said I’d finished. I was in a new area of inquiry, and I wanted to get as good at that as I had been in the academic work.”

“Danaher’s an autodidact,” says Dr. Maguire, who had wished to see his friend complete his dissertation defense. “His jiu-jitsu is different because he’s pulled the problems apart and studied them objectively. He’s a study in violence, and he’s earned his Ph.D in human aggression. What we’re seeing now is his twist on the sport.”

*****

Danaher had been working with Georges St-Pierre for three years when the Canadian had his first UFC title defense against Matt Serra. Although Serra no longer trained in NYC, he was Renzo Gracie’s first American black belt and Danaher’s former coach. Once the fight was booked, Serra called Danaher and asked him not to coach St-Pierre.

Danaher agreed, and Serra won by TKO, but after Serra’s victory there was a long line of fighters between St-Pierre and a rematch, leaving the former teacher of “Introduction to Moral Philosophy” in a serious moral quandary.

“The most dangerous thing from Matt’s perspective was showing Georges how to beat Matt Serra,” says Danaher. “I would never do that—it would be nothing less than a betrayal. On the other hand, I’d be betraying Georges if I didn’t help him beat Koscheck and Hughes. I couldn’t be loyal to one without being disloyal to the other.”

Despite the fighter’s brief détente, Danaher still wasn’t allowed to train St-Pierre inside the academy. To accommodate him, St-Pierre would wear a “baseball cap, hooded sweatshirt pulled over his face, and a bulky leather jacket” and wait outside Renzo’s for Danaher to finish his final class of the night. The pair would then call up local karate schools and dojos and ask to use their mat space. “They’d always try to turn us away, but then they’d see Georges pull down his hood and they’d freak out.”

After the destruction of Koscheck and Hughes, Danaher once again stopped coaching St-Pierre before his rematch with Serra, a gesture that both fighters and teacher seem to agree was a difficult and proper decision. “It was never awkward with me and John because he always did the right thing,” says Serra. “He stayed out of it and didn’t coach him for the rematch. It was a tough spot, but he a very honorable dude.” St-Pierre won the rematch and regained his title.

With the Serra fights behind them, St-Pierre and Danaher grew even closer. They started reading the same books, discussing philosophy, and studying…dinosaurs. They’re unapologetically nerdy about their non-fighting intellectual pursuits, but the bulk of their conversations still cover the psychology of human aggression and how to dictate and control an opponent. Their concentration is what you should expect from a pair who have revolutionized ground fighting in MMA and made St-Pierre the best wrestler in the history of the UFC.

Today, Danaher’s world is filled with learning and teaching. Whether he’s in Montreal with Georges or NYC with a room full of respectful blue belts, Danaher is no longer splitting his passion for philosophical thought and physical applications—he now has a laboratory where he can combine the two.

“Look, I wouldn’t call him ‘Little Mary Sunshine,’ or anything,” says Dr. Maguire. “John Danaher is a realist and a stoic. Human happiness has never been an objective of his life. But he is a born teacher, and he’s found his classroom.”